remarks about the context, character, and influence of Bradley's
philosophy may help to set the scene. These can then be aug-
mented later. Bradley began his half-century-long Oxford career in
1870.¹ English philosophy was at that time predominantly empiri-
cist, and under the influence of John Stuart Mill. But new ideas
from Germany were also making themselves felt. Kant and Hegel
were being rapidly assimilated, their followers, led initially by
T. H. Green, forming a school that would, in a brief time, come
to eclipse empiricism. Nor were they all that Germany had to
offer, for those writers who had reacted against idealism, such as
Herbart, Lotze, Sigwart, and Wundt, were also beginning to be
read about this time.²

All of these influences were thrown together by Bradley into a
highly original system that resists easy capture. Though at first
sight idealist and Hegelian, it is also essentially realist and in the
British tradition of philosophy. Though at first sight destructive, it
is also highly constructive. Though at first sight metaphysical, it is
also rigorously logical in its foundations. To match this singular
content, Bradley developed a singular style of prose and presenta-
tion, which the poet Eliot described as, 'for his purposes . . . a
perfect style'. ³ Indeed, Bradley is almost as well known today on
literary grounds as on philosophical.

All this was welded together into a system that held philoso-
phers under its spell for many years. And, even if it was later
rejected as whole-heartedly as it had once been accepted, its influ-
ence lived on. The major schools of pragmatism and logical em-
piricism were in large part born as reactions against, and therefore
cannot be fully understood except by reference to, Bradley's
thought. ⁴ In this way he played a major role in determining the
shape of contemporary philosophy.

The scene thus set, let us turn to a more detailed discussion, first

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